The second CMAL hybrid, MV Lochinvar departed Malaig around 13:00 and picked up the 17:00 sailing to Sconser.

Here she is just passing the old iron ore pier, taken from Sconser with the wee Panasonic DMC-F27 so not bad.

A couple of the Lochinvar at Raasay pier

and us just ready to depart.

Finally underway, destination west side of Railway pier Kyle of Lochalsh.

The setting sun on the Skye bridge

and behind us over Skye and Raasay.

Internetless again

Still having problems with the Internet at home so not been able to do any blogging but to be honest I’m not too fussed now. We did have it back on for a few days and I managed to do all I needed prior to loosing it again. The main thing being the ‘completion certificate’ for Sonas which got held up ‘in the ether’ for a couple of weeks. Also managed to pay all my debts and finally send my camera back.

Sean, the engineer was over again today and is doing his best to work around several faults plus some problems he’s ‘inherited’ but I’m sure we’ll be back ‘up to speed’ soon enough. I really can’t praise the system highly enough normally we have a great and reliable service but ‘ 5h1t happens’ as they say

The camera saga

Thanks to ‘Ship Postcard’ a regular follower that sent me a nice Panasonic DMC-FZ7 I can finally take some pictures. Since having found a little more enthusiasm for blogging of late I thought I’d best get another.

I still have my ‘bomb proof’ Olympus Tough, which is great for indoors and close work but pretty limited in the zoom department. Having wrecked at least one camera per year since starting this blog in 2007 I’d given up buying anything that wouldn’t fit in my pocket. However, the last few months I’ve seen so many sea eagles, golden eagles, dolphins, porpoises, deer and amazing sunsets that I thought I’d ‘splash out’ and get another Panasonic.

Having trashed five Fuji’s in four years I moved to Panasonic some time ago and found them much more durable. I actually had a Panasonic DMC-FZ60 that fell out of the quad box, landed under the quad wheel, got driven over and pressed into the mud!!! I was on the hill at the time and didn’t even have anything to wipe it dry but after taking it home and cleaning it, it worked for another year or so. That was me converted and it’s what I’ve had ever since, another FZ60 or at least its equivalent.

I was well impressed with an image taken through triple glazing of a ship over a mile away. However the spectacular sunset that appeared a couple of hours later was not so good. In fact the pictures were ‘pure pish’ and ‘wishy washy’, the Sony DSC H400 doesn’t have a ‘sunset setting’. Now I’m sure that if I spent enough time messing about with shutter speeds and aperture settings I’d get a half decent shot but I’m no photographer, sunsets don’t last that long and ‘life’s too short’. Sure it had a dozen other settings for food, snow, beach, fireworks, night, babies, pets and sport but that’s not a lot of use to someone living by the sea and facing west. I’ve lost count of the number of cameras I’ve had and they’ve all had a ‘sunset setting’.

Anyway, I sent it back, got a refund and was rescued by a kind blog reader,

OK, the wee Panasonic doesn’t have a sunset setting either but it still takes half decent pictures of one. This will be Sconser last night at 18:30.

A Kyle trawler returning to port around the same time passes by the Jackal Rock buoy.

This last couple of weeks has seen much activity around these shores with all manner of unmanned craft taking to the air plus on and under the water. Just prior to leaving Raasay something long, low and grey passed the Hallaig at 40 plus knots with a large RIB following.

The rest of it

Other than that, after a couple of scabby days the weather once more settled back into a ‘settled spell’ that is anything but typical for this time of year.

A good downpour on Sunday night had the hydro turbine doing overtime and a wee toad got trapped in a drain. He must have crawled or hopped a long way to get there but there he was well and truly stuck, not having the sense to go back the way he came.

Anyway, that’s it for now, I’m off to make my bed in the disabled toilet, which is actually the only place on the boat apart from the bridge where you can switch off all the lights!

Auto colour balance will be trying to make all the images neutral in colour. Not what you need to get a good sunset.

Wish I’d have known that at the time as I liked the Sony. Trouble was, it arrived when I’d no Internet so couldn’t even ‘Google’ anything. Another thing that really p155ed me off about it was the complete lack of a manual with it, not even a CD, just a sheet of paper telling you how to switch it on then ‘go on line for instructions’ fat lot of feckin use that is!!!!